"In the annals of human history, the growth for the
nations, the rise and fall of empires, appear as if dependent on the will and
prowess of man; …[but] above, behind, and through all the play and counterplay
of human interest and power and passions, the agencies of the All-merciful One
[are] silently, patiently working out the counsels of His own will."

E.G. White. Prophets and Kings, pp. 499-500.

The
context of the biblical-Christian worldview is decisive for the formation of a
Christian approach toward teaching and studying both national and world
history.For Seventh-day Adventists the
motif of the Great Controversy traditionally has constituted an important part
of our biblical-Christian worldview and served as a basis for our approach
toward history.There are several areas
with which this concept of the Great Controversy is traditionally been
connected:

A.The Seventh-day Adventist Church, especially since 1888, has paid a
significant attention to the personal relationship of an individual with God.

B.Another significant contribution of Adventism has been the issue of the family as the first organizational unit
playing an important role in God's design and in the Great Controversy.

C.The next level on which the Great Controversy has been studied is the history of humankind in general, the
nations presented in their interrelationship.

D.Finally, the issue that traditionally has enjoyed the highest status
within the Adventist community is the cosmic
concept of the Great controversy.

This simple diagram
outlines these traditional issues:

Universe

Humanity

Family

Individual

What is
missing in this logical classifying pyramid? Somehow, the study of the
histories of the individual countries and nations in the context of the Great
Controversy has never been properly introduced into the scope of Adventist's
historical scholarship[1].There is an unfilled gad between such
organizational units as family and humanity in general.The diagram that I would suggest looks
slightly different:

Individual
– Family – Nation – Humanity – Universe

At least
graphically, national history occupies a central place in the theme of the
Great Controversy.In spite of the fact
that the world is getting smaller and more universal, a national history
occupies a more important role today than it did ten or fifteen years ago[2].However, from conversations with students
and educators from different countries, I have gotten the impression that in
some areas of national history, the integration of faith and learning is very
difficult to apply.Of course, most
educators know the history of SDA church in their country.But how does the SDA history help the
Chinese educator who is responsible for presenting the millenniums of Chinese
history to his/her students? Obviously, in order to integrate Christian faith
into the teaching of national history, one needs more than a knowledge of
secular, political, social, economical, cultural and religious histories of a
certain nation.Suppose I know when and
why the Great Chinese Wall was constructed and know that for centuries Chinese
people were worshiping the spirits of the ancestors.The question remains: So what? What does it all have to do with
Chinese beliefs?

Purpose

Certainly,
some of the principles that Christian educators apply to history in general
might, after some adaptation, be applicable to national history.However, they may not be enough.In this belief essay I attempt to summarize
my experience of teaching national history and, more importantly, to invite
Adventist historians from different countries to join this discussion.

The
approach presented in this paper is designed for those who teach national
history to the students of high schools and colleges.For the younger students, this approach may not be effective if
used without careful adaptation[3].The following material may be useful: both
for those teaching in a secular school and for those teaching in a Christian,
Seventh-day Adventist school or college.The emphasis in each case can be easily regulated by the teacher.

National History and the Worldview

I had
both the privilege and the challenge of teaching national history – in my case
it was a history of Russia -at a time
when the country was in transition from one historical period to another.The ideology was also in a transitional state
– the old Marxist ideology was slowly giving way to a number of rival
philosophies, such as capitalism, growing nationalism, postmodernism, and,
finally, Christianity as represented mostly by the Russian Orthodox Church.It was a time when after about seventy years
of united, centralized ideology, Russian was fractures into reds, white, green,
browns, blacks and some transitional ideological colors.Due to this fact, every teacher had to face
the difficult choice of sorting out these competing ideologies.My situation was complicated by the fact
that as a Seventh-day Adventist teacher I was not comfortable with any of these
fractions.However, in spite of being
extremely challenging, this situation was also very illuminating.One could hardly find a better time and
place for a critical re-evaluation of different approaches toward this
discipline.

Although
based on certain facts in most cases verifiable dates: history, especially
national history, was one of those subjects that were often manipulated to
support the idea of certain personalities, institutions, or regimes.This subject was so often abused that many
present-day scholars, in their often-justifiable disbelief in the superiority
of one particular interpretation of history above the others, are trying to
reduce the study of national history to the mere presentation of certain
facts.Postmodernism went one further
step, and declared that any attempts to go beyond "metanarrative" are
doomed to failure[4].The postmodern era is a period in which
everything is "delegitimized."The postmodern outlook demands an attack on any claim to universality-it
demands, in fact, a "war on totality"[5].Foucalt, Derrida and other followers of the
postmodern school of thought "increasingly describe historians as 'inventing,'
'imagining,' 'creating,' and constructing' the past."[6]In addition to being methodologically
doubtful, this approach lacks most of the features that the study of history
traditionally enjoys.

First, it
operates rather within the scope of archeology than within the dynamic scope of
history that always implies certain interpretation.And second, it lacks all the inspiring power that the study of
national history traditionally provides.The fact that sometimes the "inspiration" that flows from
presenting national history is more destructive than constructive doesn't
exclude its potential positive side.In
fact, every scientific discipline contains both potential dangers
advantages.The very definition of
history suggests an interpretation."History
is a principled and humanistic dialogue between us and our ancestors… it is the
reconstruction of past events, through a dialogue between surviving evidence
about the past and existing analytical, theoretical, and political concerns in
the present"[7].The need in a biblical-Christian worldview
for the study of national is very well expressed by Gary Land who observes: "It
seems clear that a Christian approach to history is both justifiable and
necessary.In fact, if our Christianity
is more than superficial it is probably impossible to avoid writing history
from a Christian perspective."[8]

The Role of the Worldview

A body of
knowledge is built by adding separate pieces of information to one
another.But such additions can have no
meaning if there is no body of knowledge to give them meaning.There must be already a certain structure
into which these bits of information can be assimilated.

The
important thing is that both the teacher and the student must have a general
idea about the subject matter of the instruction that can provide a framework
for interpreting the information presented. The history of the dame nation
taught from the position of materialistic atheism, nationalism, capitalism and
other "isms" is not the same.The difference will be both in the selection of data and in its
interpretation.In most cases the
teacher is conscious of his/her worldview.The challenge for the Adventist teacher is to make his/her worldview
open for students and to integrate it into the process of teaching.As a teacher enters into a dialog with
his/her students, this dialog must be "stimulated both at the level of
data information and at the level of the conceptual framework."[9]

The Foundations of a Christian Worldview if a National
History

A helpful
outline of the main worldview is found in the paper presented by Humberto M.
Rasi for the Seminar of Faith and Learning, Summer 1999.[10]

Understandably,
a historian holding such a view of God would construct his/her view on national
history in a different way than those with atheistic or neopantheistic
approaches.There is a dramatic
difference, for example, between Eusebius's "church History"[11]
and the accounts of the pagan historians of that time.Thus, theistic views strongly affect one's
perception of history, although it will not predetermine entirely our views on
history, since the historical facts always control historian.

Christian understanding of man

"Physical-spiritual
beings with personality, created in God's image capable of free moral
decisions, now in a fallen condition."

Certainly,
a scholar accepting this presupposition will never fall to those historical
constructions that are based on a view of the human being as an economical
being (Marxism), machine (capitalism) or animal (naturalism).Accepting the biblical image of man helps
the Christian historian see a history of his/her country without the pervasive
glasses of doubtful humanistic hypotheses.

One
example of this view of men and women as God's children is the Christian
exclusion if the unhealthy delight drawn by some nationalists from the bloody
defeat of the enemy-even if the victory is appraised as a progressive step in
the history of the nation.King David
was

deprived the
privilege of building the Temple for the Lord as a result of his bloody wars.

This
Christian anthropology in the field of history is also demonstrated by those
teachers who are able to separate genuine patriotism from nationalism or
chauvinism.The Christian anthropology,
that approaches every human being as a child of God, forbids a national pride
which exalts one race or tribe in expense of the others.

Christian understanding of the ethics

"Unchanging
character of God (just and merciful), revealed in Christ and in the Bible."

The
understanding that humans are responsible beings, beings that were given some
specific moral laws, provides the historian with a tool for measuring the
events of history as having intrinsic moral value.Historians usually argue about the validity of certain historical
events for the perspective of their outcomes, or success.But how do we describe "success"?If Hitler won World War II, could his
actions be called positive or successful? When is the time boundaries for the
evaluation of events? Should they give an immediate result? When one of the
Chinese governmental officials was asked about his evaluation of the French
Revolution, he said that it is too early to judge. It is true: without the moral dimensions provided by the Bible, it
is always "too early to judge" any historical event.The voice must be given to the morality of
the events and the threads to connect them to principles, motivations, and
consequences.

Christian view on the meaning of history

"A
meaning sequence of events, guided by free human decisions, but also supervised
by God; moving toward the fulfillment of God's overall plan."

Intuitive
observation of history as a meaningful process has always been a challenge for
a prick mind.William Miller, founder
of the Adventist movement, wrote in his "Apology and Defense":

In 1813,
I received a Captain's commission in the U.C. Service, and continued in the
army until peace was declared.While
there, many occurrences served to weaken my confidence in the correctness of
Neistical principles.I was led
frequently to compare this country to that of the children of Israel, before
whom God drove out the inhabitants of their land.It seemed to me that the Supreme Being must have watched over the
interests of this country in an especial manner, and delivered us from the
hands of our enemies.[12]

However,
under other circumstances, some historical events may produce bitter
disappointment and even unbelief-the cases of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre
are good examples of this situation.Gary Land notices: "The problem for the historian is that once we
move beyond New Testament times, the Bible gives little specific information
regarding God's intervention in history.Even the prophecies do not necessarily refer to God's activity in human
affairs, for what they foretell may simply be the result of human actions."[13]

At the
same time, although it is impossible for a historian to see "God's hand"
in every particular event of history, he or she still can be guided and guarded
by the light of revelation.After a
details description of certain future events (Matt 24), Jesus Himself says: "See,
I have told you ahead of time" (v.25).Those Christians who lived in Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction
were able to save their lives only because they took the words of Jesus Christ
(v.15-20) seriously and fled to the mountains.The Seventh-day Adventist approach toward history is based on the best
characterized by the interpretation of the books of Daniel and Revelation, and
can be best characterized by the categories of the Great Controversy.[14]
This approach undermines any speculations concerning the future of the
humanity: both extremely pessimistic and unduly optimistic ones.

The Bible on the History of Nations

The Bible
pays significant attention to the histories of the nations.In one sense, the entire Old Testament is
the historical account of the development of the Israelite nation in its
relationship to the other nations.The
book of Genesis describes both the natural tendency of the formation of
separate nations, or tribes (ch. 4), and also the divine intervention that
caused the division of humankind into separate nations (ch. 11). Thus, God
Himself is the initiator of such a phenomenon as a nation.And although the circumstances under which
this separation is pictured in the Bible are quite sad, this division was as
necessary for humankind as the healing curse of working "in the sweat of
the face" (Gen. 3:19).

By fragmenting
a once-united humanity into nations, God creates a better environment for
working with His children.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the
whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where
they should live.

God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and
find him, though he is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:26-27)

The Bible
presents God as both creator and sustainer of every nation.No nation can survive without God's
grace.Further, God Himself initiated
the birth of the Israelite nation (Gen. 12) that was called to play a special
role in the Great Controversy.The
emergence of Israel as a nation should be seen not as one that was done at the
expense of other nations, but rather ass one that was made for the sake of
other nations: "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you"
(Gen. 12:3).In the Old Testament the
individual nation is a prime object of God's activity.

God's
special care for individual nations is demonstrated in the Bible
abundantly.God is the one who can
really see the "little Great Controversy" that is going on within the
boundaries

of every
nation..It was not a secret for the
biblical authors that the spiritual war is not limited by the boundaries of
Israel:

In that
day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance
to the Lord Almighty.One of them will
be called the City of Destruction.In
that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a
monument to the Lord at its border.It
will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt.When they cry out to the Lord because of
their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and will rescue
them.So the Lord will make himself
known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord.They will worship with sacrifices and grain
offerings: they will make vows to the Lord and keep them… In that day there
will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria.The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria.The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship
together.

In that
day Israel will be the third, along with Egyptian and Assyria, a blessing on
the earth.The Lord Almighty will bless
tem, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handwork, and Israel
my inheritance." (Is 19:18-25).

Isn't it
surprising that Israel is mentioned last in the triad of nations worshipping
God? It is not the task of this essay to discuss whether this prophecy was ever
fulfilled in history or not.What is
important for this study is a situation when the spiritual confrontation is
depicted within the boundaries of some individual nations.God sees this confrontation-this "little
Great Controversy."The prophet Isaiah
recognizes it.What is it that is
keeping us from a systematic study of national histories from the perspective
of the Christian worldview? Probably the answer is the lack of principles that
would allow us to undertake serious research.

The Christian 'Approach Toward the Teaching if National
History

In Relation with Other Approaches

A
Christian scholar finds and respects positions that differ from him or
her.White dealing with different
approaches toward the history of an individual nation, a Christian historian
should emphasize the values found in each of these approaches.Thus, a textbook written from a Marxist's
position might be very helpful to the Christian historian as he/she deals with
such issues as equity of all people, social justice etc.At the same time, a Marxist's approach
obviously lacks others historical dimensions, such as the role of the
individual and the uniqueness of every person-the features emphasized by some
historians sharing the existentialist's position.In its turn, the existentialist in his evaluations lacks such
objective historical factors as the external values.This list of incompleteness found in every secular historical
factors as the external values.This
list of incompleteness found in every secular approach toward national history
could be continued.It is the task f a
Christian historian to present both the values and the shortcoming of these
approaches.[15]

A naïve
view of history texts assumes that they present objective, trustworthy accounts
of past events.Several studies report
that such a concept is frequent among high-school and even college students.[16]
By comparing different approaches towards a study of national history, the
teacher develops in his/her students to discern between historical facts and presuppositions
of certain schools.

The Moral Dimension in the Teaching of National History

Objectiveness,
however, excludes neither comments nor interpretation.Imagine a situation-unfortunately quite
real-in one of the Serbian schools when a history teacher describes

with strong colors
the massacre done by their neighboring Slavic nation to some of the Serbian
villages in the last century.What is
going to be the natural reaction of his/her students? A growing nationalism and
a cultivation of hostility against their neighboring nation.And what is happening today is a direct
result of this kind of teaching.

What is
the solution? The ideologists of the Soviet period, in their honorable attempt
to stop the hostility between the nations, were trying to delete from the
memory and from the textbooks the very mention of such national conflicts.In addition to being non-historical and,
despite the noble pacifistic goal, immoral, this approach has proven to be
ineffective.The "oral tradition"
has magnified the real accounts of the ethnic conflict and has altered them
into horror tales, called to sustain and multiply racial hatred.

A
Christian approach to this problem is demonstrated by those few teachers who
present certain facts, but who do so not in the spirit of enmity, but in the
spirit of sorrowfulness and reconciliation.The teacher who demonstrates a Christian approach to the ethnic problem
will express his/her attitude toward these certain facts of the history, an
attitude that communicates Christian values of forgiveness and love.The Christian teacher can not remain neutral
toward the controversial points of national history.To be neutral is to be supportive of the student's dubious
reaction that arises in response to the facts of history.People look at national history as having
certain practical implications of the present and for the future of their
country, and that is why the Christian approach is demonstrated not only by
presenting history form the specific point of view, but also by expressing a
Christian attitude toward the possible implications of these data.To remain truthful to the facts of history I
tell to my students that World War II took the lives of about 50 millions
Russians.To remain truthful to my
Christian vocation I add that although we deal here with the greatest tragedy
of the twentieth century, it is only forgiveness and love that are able to heal
this bleeding wound.The attitude to
hatred could only deepen this wound and bring an even greater tragedy upon
humankind.The moral dimension in
teaching of national history gives the teacher opportunity to remain faithful
to the historical facts at the same time to affirm his/her Christian
standpoint.

Dynamics in Teaching National History

Since
every society is constantly undergoing the dynamic process of change and
development, the teaching of national history should also be a dynamic
process.In a rather peculiar way, this
process can be demonstrated by the manner it was accomplished in the former
Soviet Union, where the textbooks on national history were seriously revised
every five years.Access to the
five-year-old textbooks on national history was very restricted and limited by
those few, who had special authorization from the regime and whose intentions
and trustworthiness were secured by certain government structures.There was a time when one could not buy the
school textbooks on national history in the bookstore and could only use the
copies that were available through the library.Such a serious attempt to keep national history under the control
of a certain ideology demonstrates not only the potential power inherent to the
teaching of this subject, but also the constant need of revision.National history should be always tuned to
the modern tendencies in the society.

One of
the most important issues that should be taken into consideration by those who
attempt to teach national history from the Christian position in the
Seventh-day Adventist concept of present truth.This concept determines our crucial evaluation of the morality
and validity of the events of national history.One could hardly apply the notion of the Great Controversy to
national history while approaching the historical events with a lack of
understanding of the concept of a present truth.Both scholars and teachers have great advantage of approaching
the historical episodes from a superior position: they are able to see certain
consequences of the actions and to arrange the individual historical events
into an organized system, which is called upon to explain history.At the same time we tend to judge both
morality and validity of the events of the past from the modern perspective,
using the tools of modern culture.This
approach keeps us from seeing the real historical importance of the events and
their places in the Great Controversy.

For
example, many of today's Russian historians approach the reforms of Peter the
Great negativity.Here are some of
their reasons: Peter had an unpleasant character, he was a hard drinker who
also forced other people to drink sometimes over two gallons of vodka a day; he
had a wild temperament, and his methods often were to violent.His only son Aleksy was tortured to death as
a result of a direct order from Peter, who himself was present at this
inquisition. All of this certainly
doesn't give this czar much credit.But
at the same time, he was the one who awakened Russia from centuries of dreaming
idleness.He introduced the principles
of religious tolerance and created an environment favorable toward the free
exchange of ideas.And although he was
neither able nor willing to separate the state from the church, he
significantly limited the interference of the Russian Orthodox church in the
state's affairs.He was an extremely
gifted and emerging child of his time.Thus, historians of the Soviet period had reasons to praise him as a
great reformer, while historians from the camp of the Russian Orthodox church
called him the antichrist.

Complex
historical problems also include a significant amount of uncertainty and
controversy that must be conveyed by text.Students may have to identify biased interpretations and distinguish
them from factual accounts.Moreover,
many historical problems require the integration of several source of evidence,
which are presented in may discourse forms… A student learning about a
historical topic from these documents must be able to do much more than to
represent the main events and causal relations of text.[17]

The
approach of an Adventist historian would be to present these controversial
issues first of all in the context of the time of Peter-the concept of the
present truth-and only after that in the context of the Great Controversy.

It is a
problem for the learner to discover the meaning of presented facts because
their meaning is dependent on what they lead up to.It is the aim of the classroom discussion to get at this
conclusion.Of course, it is a
challenge.And, of course, there can be
no fixed place for the reform of Peter the Great on the visible scale of moral
values.And although every teacher has
a right to his/her own opinion and has a right to present this opinion to the
students, the Christian approach implies humility and acceptance of the
limitations of human judgement. By stimulating discussion and challenging
students with controversial issues, a teacher both stimulates the development
of creative and critical thinking among his/her students causes them to examine
national history as the arena of the Great Controversy between good and
evil-even if the students doesn't consider himself or her to be a
Christian.Eventually, it will help
many students to form their system of moral values based on the Christian
principles mentioned above.

The Teacher as a Scholar

Although
the modern approach toward all science, including history, is increasingly
characterized by narrow specialization, and in spite of the fact that a high
wall was erected between those who "create" and "shape" a
discipline and those who are supposed to communicate it to the students, a
teacher should not be deprived of his/her own research and scientific
investigation.It is especially true in
the case of a Christian teacher whose Christian emphases are different from
traditional secular emphases on national history.Only will be very surprised to find just a step aside from the
familiar collection of historical events traditionally presented by secular
historians a rich and almost untouched historical mine.Among Seventh-day Adventist it happened when
E. G. White presented her alternative history in the book Great Controversy.One
example of her method is the way she brought into the scope of historical
investigation such forgotten phenomena as the Waldensian movement.[18]
For centuries this subject remained neglected by scholars not because it was
unimportant, but because it simply did not fit into the traditional course of
history.It is my conviction that the
historical heritage of every nation could be greatly enriched by the study of
abandoned pages of their national history.

A
Christian history teacher has all the opportunities-except time, and sometimes
a desire-to conduct historical investigation.The historical achieves in most countries are available for a
researcher, and the process of research by itself may be extremely rewarding.

During my
years of teaching Russian history to the Seminary students at Zaoksky, Russia,
I became interested in the fifteenth-century Russian religious movement, called
by its opponents "Judaizing" because of some of its teachings and
especially Sabbath observance.Being
blessed with an administration supportive enough to free me from my teaching
responsibilities on Monday, I dedicated this day to traveling, studying the
archives, collecting materials, and, finally, writing a book.In the course of my research I discovered an
entire period in Russian history when what we now call Protestant ideas were
not merely popular, but accepted by the Russian royal family, by many of the
nobility and intellectuals and also by many lower and middle class people.The period from the late 1470s through the
first five years of the sixteenth century occupies a special place in the
history of social, political and religious thought in Russia.By contemporaries this is the period called the
"heretical storm."According
to the writing of Fedor Kuritzin, the fifteenth-century Russian diplomat and
one of the theologians of this movement, the Russian reformers held the
following beliefs:

1. The
Holy Scriptures is the highest authority of the believer and they are above the
traditions of the church.

2. Things
like monasticism, icons, holy relics, and other traditions not found in the
Bible are priestly inventions.They
should not be honored.

3. The
Bible is also a historical and a prophetic guide that ties together the past,
the present, and the future.

4. The
Christian should pray to God without any kind of mediators like the priest and
the saints.The Scriptures can be
understood and explained, bypassing the clergy.

5.
Believers should keep all of God's Law, the Decalogue, including the Sabbath.

6. Christ's
death was an atoning sacrifice for the sins of humankind.

7. There
is a union between the spirit and the body; therefore, there is no immortality
of the soul.

8. Every
man is free to choose and practice what he believes: the freedom of conscience.

9. True
religion and science do not antagonize each other.

The
defeat of this movement constitutes another tragic and almost unknown page of
Russian history.On the third day of
Christmas, December 27, 1504, the population of Moscow saw the first
inquisitional burning at the stakes in Russia.Ivan Kuritsyn, the brother of Feodor; Dimitrii Knonopliov; Ivan
Maksimov, and others were burned in wooden cages.Old Ivan III together with his son, Tzar Vasilii; Metropolitan
Simon with other bishops; and all the Church Council accused them of Judaizing
and sentenced them to death.In the
same winter Ivan Rukavov, the Archimandrite of the Yr'evskii monastery; Kassian
and his brother Ivan Chiornyi; Gridia Kvashnis; Dimitrii Pustoselov and obviously
other less-known heretics were burned because of "Judaizing."The inquisition did not spare even those "heretics"
of royal blood.The Czar's
daughter-in-law Helen and her son, sixteen-year-old Dimitry, a rightful prince
and the first in Russian history officially crowned heir of the Russian throne,
were thrown into a prison and, after the death of Ivan III in 1505, they were
killed too.

The study
of "parallel history" may open for a teacher an entirely new
perspective on national history. The case of Robert Boyle presented it this
seminar illustrates how little do we know about even the most prominent
scientists, artists, politicians and entire historical movements beyond the
line that was proclaimed as a "mainstream" of the historical
narrative.

Conclusion

It is my
deep conviction that the history of every nation to some extent reflects the
motif of the Great Controversy.And
although the entire picture of the great conflict between God and Satan is not
limited even by the history of humankind in its totality and includes the
spiritual war in heaven, it is the history of individual nations that reveals
different details of the great cosmic controversy.Being small particles of the greater picture, the histories of
individual nations deserve the study of their own.

The
biblical-Christian worldview is an integral part of a Christian approach toward
a teaching of national history.Such
issues as Christian understanding of God, man, ethics, Christian view on the
meaning of history lay at the very foundation of this worldview. The Bible both
set an example of treating national history as a part of universal conflict,
and provides researcher with presuppositions, moral tools and actual data
needed for this approach.At the same
time Scripture restrains any humanistic attempt-even those painted in religious
colors-to weight individuals and events and to pronounce a judgement" "You
have been weighed on the scales and found wanting" (Dan.5:27).God is the God of history, and to His is the
glory to judge-both individuals and nations.

[1] One of the
attempts to give a historical analysis to Seventh-day Adventist movement was
made by Malcolm and Keith Lockhart in their book Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989). With these Adventists authors
considerable attention was paid to the history of the United States of America
and its role in the fulfillment of prophecy.But even this study was always oriented toward the potential role of the
USA in eschatological events, rather than toward the spirit battle that has
been going on in the USA for centuries.At the same time the evangelicals were attempting to analyze the
internal spiritual processes that affected American Christianity.See, for example, David F. Wells, No Place For Truth, Or Whatever Happened to
Evangelical Theology? (Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, England, 1993).

[2] This
interest in a national history is due to two primary factors: first, it is
postmodernism with an orientation toward the local rather than the general-see
Frederic B,. Burnham (ed.)

[3]The research conducted by M. Anne Britt, Jean-Francios Rouet, Mara C.
Georgi, and Charles A. Perfetti shows that an analytical approach toward
teaching history is not equally effective among the older and younger
students."Using the model to
score student's answers, we found that as early as fourth grade, students are
able to use their experience with narratives to learn discrete events from a
history story.However, only the older
students were able to build a representation of the text's complex narrative
structure that included both the events and their causal connections.Although early practice with reading
narratives allows the young student to initially learn facts from the text, it
is not until sixth grade that the relations between discrete events are
routinely learned.Younger students
appear to need more assistance in understanding the motivations and causes of
the events." M. Anne Britt, Jean-Francois Rouet, Mara C. Georgi, Charles
A. Perfetti, "Learning from History Text: From Causal Analysis to Argument
Models", in Teaching and Learning
History, ed. Gaea Leingardt, Isabel L. Beck, Catherine Stainton, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1994, p.82 (art. 47-84).

Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a
Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989).The second factor is the increasing role
that modern society gives to different cultures.

[4] See, for
example, Hayden White, "The Politics of Historical Interpretation:
Discipline and De-Sublimation," in The
Politics of Interpretation, ed. W.J.T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983).

[15] While
presenting these positions to the students, one should consider specifically of
the cultural environment.Some of the
philosophies that affect the discipline of history might not be well known or
popular in certain regions.It may be a
good idea to leave them aside and to deal with those tendencies that are real
and palpable.

[16] Wineburg,
S.S. On the reading of historical texts: Notes on the breach between school and
academy.American Education Research Journal, 28, 495-519.